Google Scholar Makes Caselaw Collection Free
November 4, 2014
Google Scholar is Google’s answer to an academic database. While it includes many scholarly articles and citations, access if often denied to the articles because they require a subscription fee or they are locked down in another way. It sucks for struggling researchers who do not have access to a public or university library. The official Google Scholar Blog details in the post, “Caselaw Is Set Free, What Next?” how paralegals, law students, and firms now have free access to loads of legal information. They rejoiced in finally having access to information and it made the law world realize the importance of legal information.
While the free legal information makes it easier to research cases, it opens another can of worms:
“We need to hugely increase the amount of freely-available material that explains the law. And we need to — in ways both trivial, and not — make it possible for people to find the laws that affect them using things they already know.”
Connections between information are also required to help people navigate the legal collection. The article provides an example about researching Tylenol, but because it is a brand name the researcher needs to know about acetaminophen and related connections. One way to solve the problem is using a categorization system similar to what science librarians use for agriculture is a model to be followed. All this information is available, but it is still difficult to access it.
Will Google launch a project that attempts to connect information collections? Would Google even try to monetize on this idea or continue trying offering free information?
Whitney Grace, November 04, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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